General Sessions
You won’t want to miss the biggest sessions with the biggest names in public health!
Opening General Session – Rebuilding Trust In Public Health & Science
Sunday, Oct. 27 | 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
- Keynote: Reed Tuckson, MD, FACP – managing director of Tuckson Health Connections, LLC
Monday General Session - The Invisible Shield: Clips & Conversation
Monday, Oct. 28 | 4:30-6 p.m.
- Speakers
- Amy Acton, MD, MPH - Former Director, Ohio Department of Health
- Mary Bassett, MD, MPH – Director, FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University
- Georges Benjamin, MD – Executive Director, American Public Health Association
- Brian Castrucci, DrPH, MA – President and CEO, de Beaumont Foundation
- Joshua M. Sharfstein, MD - Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
- James and Sarah Fries Prize for Improving Health Recipient
Closing General Session – Partnering to Make Health a Top Priority for our Nation
Wednesday, Oct. 30 | 2:30-4 p.m.
- Speakers
- Rep. Mike Freiberg, JD - Minnesota House of Representatives
- Deanna Wathington, MD, MPH, FAAFP – Clinical Director, REACHUP, Inc
- Virginia Caine, MD - Marion County Public Health Department
- Bechara Choucair, MD - Kaiser Permanente
- J. Nadine Gracia, MD, MSCE - Trust for America's Health
Champion Conversations
Champion Conversations bring the most engaging, influential public health leaders and professionals to the Annual Meeting to encourage thought-provoking conversations and ideas that lead to concrete actions for attendees to implement.
Sunday, Oct. 27
2:30-4 p.m. – Democracy & Health: How did we get here? Where are we going?
4:30-6 p.m. – America Dissected Podcast Taping – Trauma, Trust and Why We Still Haven’t Processed the Pandemic with Professor Eric Klinenberg
Monday, Oct. 28
8:30-10 a.m. – Women in Public Health
10:30 a.m.-12 p.m. – From Declaration to Action: Where are we now in addressing racism as a public health crisis?
2:30-4 p.m. – AJPH Session: Ensuring Inclusivity for The Quality of Scientific Publication
Tuesday, Oct. 29
8:30-10 a.m. – Empathy in Action: Transforming Public Health Messaging in a Polarized Era
10:30 a.m.-12 p.m. – Ending Unequal Treatment: Achieving Optimal Health for All
2:30-4 p.m. – The Role of Law and the Courts on Improving the Health of the Public
4:30-6 p.m. – Local Coalitions for Health and Justice: Building Power from the Ground Up, No Matter Who’s in Office
Wednesday, Oct. 30
8:30-10 a.m. – Mobilizing Mayors to Strengthen Trust in Public Health and Science
10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. – Infectious Disease Mitigation: A 21st Century Challenge
12:30-1:30 p.m. – Trust for America’s Health Blueprint for a Healthier America
Notable Speakers
Zackie Achmat
Monday General Session
Monday, Oct. 28 | 4:30-6 p.m.
Zackie Achmat, is a movement builder, political activist and law reformer. He spent his life fighting for justice, equality, dignity, and freedom, particularly for working-class people and vulnerable minorities. Schooled by great mentors, Achmat worked within the ANC to end White minority rule. Since 1994, he co-founded and led movements such as the Treatment Action Campaign, Equal Education, the Social Justice Coalition, Ndifuna Ukwazi, Reclaim the City and #UniteBehind. These movements focused on political education, research, mobilisation, and litigation.
He has collaborated with activists, HIV/AIDS and humanitarian agencies worldwide, including UNAIDS and the World Health Organisations. Blazing a trail, Zackie ran as an independent candidate in the South African National Elections in 2024. This was the first time in democratic South Africa that independents could contest national elections. During his campaign he built a knowledge-based movement that will continue to fight for a public service that is competent, ethical, and accountable, despite him not being elected as a Member of Parliament. He also continues to fight against state capture, corruption, mismanagement, fraud, incompetence, and criminality through the work of #UniteBehind.
Amy Acton, MD, MPH
Monday General Session
Monday, Oct. 28 | 4:30-6 p.m.
Dr. Amy Acton is a physician and community leader who has spent over 35 years pursuing her passion for public health and wellness. Dr. Acton’s widely acclaimed leadership and inspiring guidance were experienced in daily news conferences as COVID exploded in the spring of 2020, earning her a Profile in COVID Courage Award from the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation in 2021. In 2022 she was named Woman of the Year (Ohio) by USA Today. Dr. Acton has been featured in many publications including The New York Times, Glamour, The New Yorker, TIME, Sesame Street, and most recently Smithsonian Magazine and Forbes.
Mary Basset, MD, MPH
Monday General Session
Monday, Oct. 28 | 4:30-6 p.m.
Mary T. Bassett is the Director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University and FXB Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights in the department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. From December 1, 2021 to December 31, 2022 Dr. Bassett was on leave from Harvard and served as New York State’s Health Commissioner. Prior to that, she served as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Director for the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation's African Health Initiative and Child Well-Being Prevention Program; and as Deputy Commissioner of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Early in her career, Dr. Bassett served on the medical faculty at the University of Zimbabwe and went on to serve as Associate Director of Health Equity at the Rockefeller Foundation's Southern Africa Office. After returning to the United States, she served on the faculty of Columbia University, including as Associate Professor of Clinical Epidemiology in the Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Bassett received a B.A. in History and Science from Harvard University, an M.D. from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, and an M.P.H. from the University of Washington.
Bechara Choucair, MD
Closing General Session
Wednesday, Oct. 30th | 2:30 – 4 p.m.
Dr. Bechara Choucair serves as executive vice president and chief health officer at Kaiser Permanente, where he oversees the organization’s community health, social health, and Medicaid portfolios and is accountable for clinical business development. Under his leadership at Kaiser Permanente, Choucair created the nation’s largest social health network to meet the housing, food and transportation needs of its members; advanced initiatives to increase access to care and improve health outcomes for more than 1.5 million Medicaid members and those enrolled in both Medicaid and Medicare; launched Habitat Health, an organization that will bring CMS’ Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) to more. Kaiser Permanente communities became the first health care organization in the United States to achieve carbon-neutral status. In 2021, Dr. Choucair served as the White House national COVID-19 vaccinations coordinator. During his tenure, nearly 500 million doses of the vaccine were administered nationwide.
Abdul El-Sayed, MD, DPhil
Live Podcast Taping of America Dissected
Sunday, Oct. 27 | 4:30-6 p.m.
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is a physician, epidemiologist and public servant. He serves as director of Wayne County’s Department of Health, Human & Veterans Services and health officer for the county, serving 1.8 million residents of Michigan’s largest and most diverse county under Chief Executive Warren C. Evans. Abdul hosts Crooked Media’s award-winning “America Dissected” podcast, attracting tens of thousands of weekly listeners to go beyond the headlines to explore the intersection between health and society. His three books include “Healing Politics,” calling for a politics of empathy to cure our epidemic of insecurity, and “Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide” with Dr. Micah Johnson. His over 100 peer-reviewed publications have earned over 3,000 citations. He holds academic appointments at the intersection between public health, public policy, and politics at the University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, the FXB Center for Health & Human Rights at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Wayne State University, and American University. He is formerly the health director for the city of Detroit, candidate for governor of Michigan in 2018, and commentator at CNN. He’s a proud member of the National Writers Union, AFT Locals 477 and 6244, SEIU Local 500, and the AAUP.
Camara Jones, MD, MPH, PhD
From Declaration to Action: Where are we now in addressing racism as a public health crisis?
Monday, Oct. 28 | 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m.
Dr. Camara Phyllis Jones is a family physician, epidemiologist, and past resident of the American Public Health Association whose work focuses on naming, measuring and addressing the impacts of racism on the health and well-being of our nation and the world. Her allegories on "race” and racism illuminate topics that are otherwise difficult for many Americans to understand or discuss: that racism exists, racism is a system, racism saps the strength of the whole society, and we can act to dismantle racism. Dr. Jones is currently a commissioner on the three-year O’Neill-Lancet Commission on Racism, Structural Discrimination, and Global Health, as well as an adjunct professor at the Rollins School of Public Health, senior fellow at the Morehouse School of Medicine and visiting professor at King’s College London. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Ali Khan, MD, MPH, MBA
Infectious Disease Mitigation: A 21st Century Challenge
Wednesday, Oct. 30th | 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m.
Dr. Ali S. Khan is the Richard Holland Presidential Chair and dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Nebraska. He is a former assistant surgeon general with the U.S. Public Health Service. His career has focused on health security, global health, climate change and emerging infections. He completed a career as a senior director at the CDC, where he began leading numerous high-profile domestic and international public health responses. Dr. Khan was one of the main architects of CDC’s national health security program. He currently serves on the executive committee for WHO’s Global Alert and Outbreak Response Network. He is the author of The Next Pandemic: On the Front Lines Against Humankind’s Gravest Dangers and co-editor of Control of Communicable Diseases Manual. He received his MD from SUNY-Downstate, med-peds residency at the University of Michigan, MPH from Emory University and MBA from University of Nebraska.
Eric Klinenberg, PhD
Live Podcast Taping of America Dissected
Sunday, Oct. 27 | 4:30-6 p.m.
Eric Klinenberg is Helen Gould Shepard Professor in the Social Sciences and director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. His books include 2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed (2024), Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life (2018), and Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago (2002). His scholarly articles have been published in the American Sociological Review, the American Journal of Public Health, Theory and Society, and Ethnography, and he has contributed to popular outlets including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, and This American Life.
Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH
Infectious Disease Mitigation: A 21st Century Challenge
Wednesday, Oct. 30th | 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m.
Eric Michael Osterholm is Regents Professor, McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in Public Health, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, a professor in the Technological Leadership Institute, College of Science and Engineering, and an adjunct professor in the Medical School, all at the University of Minnesota.
Joshua Sharfstein, MD
Monday General Session
Monday, Oct. 28 | 4:30-6 p.m.
Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein is vice dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement, director of the Bloomberg American Health Initiative and professor of the Practice in Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is a former health commissioner of Baltimore City, health secretary of Maryland, and principal deputy commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Public Administration.
Catherine Troisi, MS, PhD
Infectious Disease Mitigation: A 21st Century Challenge
Wednesday, Oct. 30th | 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m.
Dr. Catherine Troisi is an infectious disease epidemiologist and professor at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health. Dr. Troisi plays a major leadership role in the Texas Epidemic Public Health Institute. She previously practiced public health as assistant director at the Houston Health Department, where she served as incident commander for Katrina and H1N1 pandemic responses. She holds a PhD in epidemiology from U. Michigan and completed National Public Health Leadership Training. Dr. Troisi was elected to the APHA Executive Board, is currently a member of the APHA Science Board and Joint Policy Committees as well as a board member of the International Network of Epidemiology in Policy and many local and state public health advisory boards. She is co-editor of the Control of Communicable Diseases Manual and recipient of the 2018 ASPPH Academic Public Health Practice Excellence Award. Dr. Troisi has given 550 media interviews since 2020.
Reed V. Tuckson, MD, FACP
Opening General Session
Sunday, Oct. 27 | 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Dr. Reed Tuckson is managing director of Tuckson Health Connections, LLC, a vehicle to advance initiatives that support optimal health and wellbeing. Currently, Dr. Tuckson’s focus is on his role as a co-convener of the Coalition For Trust In Health & Science, which is dedicated to bringing together the entire health related ecosystem to address mistrust and misinformation. In addition, he continues to advance his work as a co-founder of the Black Coalition Against COVID, a multi-stakeholder and interdisciplinary effort working to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic in Washington, D.C. and nationally by coordinating the four historically Black medical schools, the NMA, the National Black Nurses Association, the National Urban League and BlackDoctor.org.